The very first project we undertook was to add a woodstove in the downstairs family room. In our case, it was an old Lopi stove that had been rescued from a friend’s garage. It dates back to the early 1980’s, so it’s a lot less picky about the quality of the wood burned.
The first part of the project involved preparing the stove itself as it was covered with rust – lots of elbow grease and long hours got it done. Luckily the stove had not been been used heavily in its former life so the door gaskets were still in fine shape.
With the stove ready to go, the next step was to prepare the area where the stove would sit. We built a frame of heavy duty angle iron and poured a pad of cement as a base. This was then covered with porcelain tile to provide a sturdy platform for the stove. We moved the platform into place and set the stove down on top to get final measurements for placing the stove pipe. With a below grade installation, we needed to cut a hole through the block wall of the basement for the pipe, which would then run up the back outside wall of the house. Cutting the hole was quite a chore!
I don’t remember anymore exactly how long it took to get everything done with the stove, but I do know that the first use was one of the coldest days in January 2000.
